Scratching the Surface
by StarFlight13
Summary: SEQUEL TO THREE MILLION YEARS. Despite watching Rimmer's memories for three days straight, Lister still barely has an idea what happened to him during that time. It's not even close to healing, but the base is finally there to be built on. OR: Lister wants to know things, but Rimmer doesn't want to tell. Until he does.


**So this is a sequel to my other story ****_Three Million Years_****, which is about if Rimmer had been active while the radiation was clearing. As always, reviews are so important to me!**

**Enjoy!**

—

"Are you really never going to tell Holly?"

"He won't want to know."

"Why would he not want to know how close friends you were?"

Rimmer gritted his teeth and stood up. He had been trying to peacefully read all morning, but Lister would not let this go.

"Lister, you don't understand."

"What do you mean I don't understand, I saw your memories."

The hologram sighed, and massaged his temple, where he was sure a holo-headache was beginning to develop.

"Lister, as far as I can tell, you watched my memories for a full three days. You've got to understand how tiny that is. You only saw a summary. You have seen almost exactly 1 in a millionth of my life while you were in stasis."

"But that doesn't include the few thousand years you spent shut down."

"Even so," Rimmer continued wearily. "That's still about 0.0001% of events. Those years are basically negligible when put next to that amount of time."

Lister looked unsatisfied, but fell quiet, and Rimmer returned to his book, slowly unclenching his teeth.

"But what about ethically, yeah—"

Rimmer's jaw tensed up again.

"They are Holly's memories. Doesn't he deserve to see them?"

This time, Rimmer didn't answer. He just threw his book onto the floor — despite the fact he had often berated Lister for doing the same thing — and stalked out the room.

Immediately Lister felt guilty.

"Rimmer, Rimmer, hey, I didn't mean to press you or anything."

He trailed after him, but when he got to the corridor, there was no sign of him on either side of the long corridor on which their room was located. It should've taken Rimmer long enough to get to the next bend in the corridor that Lister would still be seeing him disappearing, but he could not.

That meant that he was walking through walls again, as soft light.

"Oh smeg," Lister mumbled to himself, feeling guiltier by the second.

Generally, Rimmer preferred to stay as hard light. It made him feel like he was a proper human, and kept him from remembering he was dead. Sometimes when he was soft light he found it hard to distinguish reality from imagination, as he had nothing to hold onto.

So when he switched to soft light to escape Lister, it only made Lister feel guilty, knowing that he could do nothing to comfort the other man because he could never catch a man who walks through walls in one place long enough to have a chat.

Instead, Lister sat down on the lower bunk, and waited.

—

"Hey, so your death tape? In memorium of your death?" Lister asked one day.

It actually managed to wrench a small smile out of Rimmer, considering how embarrassed and pompous he had been when they had first discovered it.

"Did you make it while I was in stasis?"

"Yeah," Rimmer said, smile widening a bit. "I actually didn't remember it until long after you discovered it. Of course I knew I had made it, and I needed to defend myself. It wasn't until later when I checked my memories I realised me and Holly had made it while we were drunk off our arses."

"And Gazpacho Soup?"

Rimmer rolled his eyes. "Have you ever been killed by a radiation leak? It wasn't exactly slow."

"So you didn't say gazpacho soup?"

"Of course I didn't. Hollister was saying: 'Rimmer, didn't you need help replacing the drive plate now that Lister's in stasis?' And I was just about too explain to him that I'd managed to do it on my own, when I turned to dust."

"But I saw the video of you falling over and saying gazpacho soup?"

Rimmer shrugged. "I was drunk. Holly videoed me. I woke up when he tipped water on me — at least, he made me feel like I was being doused with water — and I saw it, and so we made that ridiculous video. At least parts of it. Later on. When I was bored I found it again and finished it off. The boring bits are interspersed with me and Holly doing drunk things."

"Huh."

—

"Did you ever manage to pass your astronavigation exam? I mean, while you were, you know?"

Rimmer shrugged but otherwise ignored him.

"Come on, man, you were there for three million years, you must have passed at least once. Then you can actually confirm your promotion."

He didn't say anything.

"Come on, don't tell me you didn't pass in all that time."

Rimmer still didn't reply.

"Not once? Really?"

"No, Lister."

When Rimmer finally turned to face the other man, his eyes were more angry and sad than Lister had ever seen. He was almost scared.

"I took the astronavigation exam over a thousand times. I took the Captain's exam, the cook's exam, sergeant's exam, astrophysics exam, aeronautical exam, all a hundred times over... I studied for and took every exam in the Red Dwarf database."

"...and you didn't pass one?"

Rimmer scoffed scornfully. "Is that how stupid you think I am? That I could have three million years, knowing that nothing would mean anything until you woke up, and during that time I would still not be ale to pass one test? That I didn't have any other burden on me for all that time and still not finish my studies? You're wrong."

With no further words, Rimmer turned and stormed out the kitchen, straight through the wall against which sat the oven and cooker.

Lister sat at the table in shock for a few seconds. He was confused.

Rimmer's dream had always been to pass his exam and become an officer, to make his father proud. And now he had, or so he said, and he seemed nothing but angry and sad.

It was at that moment Cat stalked into the room, looking disgruntled. "Can't you go keep that damn goalpost-head under control. Damn near gave me a heart attack appearing out the wall."

"Did you see where he was going."

The Cat opened the fridge and swigged milk straight out the bottle. "How should I know? Probably going to sulk wherever he normally goes. Tell him to stick to corridors."

"Right," Lister said, distracted, "will do."

Lister left the kitchen just as Cat ordered six smoked salmon slices from the dispensing machine. He paced down the corridor until he reached the lift, then told it to go to the observation deck.

When he arrived, Rimmer was sitting at the end of the path, surrounded by trees, kneeling with his head bowed under the tall dome of glass.

Lister knelt down next to him. "Hey."

He gently put his hand over Rimmer's, only for Rimmer to snatch his arm away when it phased through.

"Rimmer. Arn, what's wrong. Was it something I said? 'Cos I'm sorry, you've got to believe me. You know I don't really understand what you've been through, but I'm trying, I really am."

"That's not it."

"Look, you shouldn't be upset that you didn't pass the exam—"

"I did pass the exam."

Lister frowned. "Then what—"

"I passed every exam on the Red Dwarf database. Some over a hundred times."

"I still don't understand."

Rimmer sighed shakily and shuffled over to lean against a tree. Lister didn't move. Sometimes it was better to give him space.

"The first hundred years or so I spent looking after the Cats. Of course I still read books and stuff, but I didn't take the exam. I was still new to the whole 'dead' business and it took a while to acclimatise.

"And then, over time as the Cats developed more and became more independent, and I had more time to myself, I thought I would try the astronavigation exam again."

He sighed and chuckled to himself. "Holly said he could set it whenever I wanted since I was the only person on board. I took my time, did different study techniques, and when I went into the exam, I was nervous, but then I realised. There was nobody else there. Unless we were rescued, there wouldn't be anyone to prove myself to for three million years.

"It was the best I'd ever done on that test. I still failed of course. An existential crisis halfway through the paper is not conducive to an exam mindset."

He fell silent. It stretched longer and longer, until he continued.

"From then on I gave up on exams. I tried to study once after that time, and realised that it meant nothing, and then that when I didn't have to study for a test, I enjoyed it. And I learned more as well.

"With the qualifications I have...I could make it to captain in weeks."

Lister pulled a face that looked constipated, but that Rimmer had come to know was his 'confused thought' expression.

"Oh, wipe that look off your face, smeghead!"

Rimmer stood angrily and made to walk off, projection flickering hard and soft with the force of his emotion.

"Hey, wait!" Lister called. He took a step and caught onto Rimmer's wrist.

The other man froze at the contact. "What?"

"I'm sorry."

Rimmer wrenched his hand away and held it to his chest. "You've said."

"No, I'm properly sorry. You're right on all this. I don't know what I'm talking about. But I know that it was hard for you - really hard - and I want to help you."

Rimmer's expression softened into a vulnerable state, and he involuntarily took a step towards Lister. "You'll regret it."

Lister smiled warmly. "I could never regret helping a friend."

He took one step towards Rimmer, arms spread out wide to hug him. And with that the floodgates opened. Rimmer collapsed into Lister's arms, sobbing his heart out.

Gently, Lister guided them down onto the floor, where Rimmer spent the better part of ten minutes crying holographic tears into Lister's shoulder that dissolved mid-air as they dripped down his face.

"Thank you," Rimmer said shakily once the sobs had died down a bit. "I— It means a lot to me. And I'm so sorry for everything I've ever done."

He broke out in tears again, face buried into Lister's shoulder, and Lister's hand rubbing warm circles on his back.

"Hey," Lister said once Rimmer went quiet again. "I'll always be here." He rubbed another circle. "But I don't really understand. Why were you so upset by the exams? Rimmer?"

He gently pulled the other man back, only to see he had fallen asleep, looking delicate and soft, and entirely more at peace than Lister had ever seen him before.

He chuckled softly. "Oh Rimmer."

Awkwardly, he removed himself from underneath the taller man, flexing his arm where it had started to go numb, and rested Rimmer's head in his lap as a pillow instead.

"Get some sleep, Rimsy." Absent-mindedly he wrapped his fingers in his hair and gently stroked him, making him hum ironically cat-like. "We can talk some other time."

The Scutters found them like this half an hour later, and helped Lister get him back to his bed.

Once there, Lister looked down at his mate thoughtfully, and slightly pityingly. He couldn't help it. Rimmer had lived through an awful thing, something Lister couldn't imagine - though he might have to, if he wanted to return to Earth.

He didn't know why Rimmer had been so touchy about the exams, he didn't know what exactly triggered him into these periods of despair and self-loathing, and he certainly had barely scratched the surface of the skeletons in his closet.

But now at least Rimmer knew he cared for him. Maybe now he would begin to trust, and they could start to purge the neuroses tormenting his friend.

It wouldn't happen in a day, nor weeks or months, and could possibly take years. But at least now they had a base, and it could only grow stronger.

"Lister—" Rimmer mumbled in his sleep. "Lister I— I love you. I'm sorry, I can't— I love you— Please don't— don't leave me..."

"I won't leave you, you smeghead," Lister said gently, switching off the lights on the way out. "I'll never leave you. I— Yes."

If only he had the courage to say _I love you too_.

—

**Thank you to everyone who read the first story, this is also posted on AO3 under the name WasALostBoy.**

**Thanks!  
Star xx**


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